July 11, 2013

The 72-year-old [Bob Dylan] told the crowd he has gone on to share stages with everyone from Mick Jagger to Madonna, but he said Vee is one of the most powerful performers he has played with.

Dylan then asked for a round of applause for Vee, whom he said was in attendance, before covering Vee's “Suzie Baby.”

Vee is younger than Bob Dylan — he's 70 — but he has Alzheimer's disease. You can listen to Vee's old recording of "Suzie Baby" here. It has a bizarrely long, lush intro. From the Wikipedia article on Vee:

Vee's career began amid tragedy. On "The Day the Music Died" (February 3, 1959), the three headline acts in the line-up of the traveling 'Winter Dance Party'—Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper—were killed, along with 21-year-old pilot Roger Peterson, in the crash of a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza v-tailed aircraft (registration #N3974N) near Clear Lake, Iowa, while en route to the next show on the tour itinerary in Moorhead, Minnesota. Velline, then aged 15, and a hastily-assembled band of Fargo, North Dakota, schoolboys calling themselves The Shadows volunteered for and were given the unenviable job of filling in for Holly and his band at the Moorhead engagement. Their performance there was a success, setting in motion a chain of events that led to Vee's career as a popular singer.

The 2 Bobby Vee songs I remember hearing on the radio the most back in the old days were: "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" and "Take Good Care of My Baby." The first one has a really crazy video, which I've blogged about before:

CORRECTION: Sorry, Vee didn't go onto the stage, but was in the audience, when Dylan talked about him and played his old song.